Knot the Usual Suspects (12 page)

S
omeone else was rattling the knob on the back door.

I thought about mopping up the tea and ignoring them—the window peerer and the doorknob rattler. But the latter sounded frantic and the former looked—oops. She suddenly disappeared, dropping out of sight with a squawk, having fallen off whatever she'd been standing on. The knob rattler abandoned the back door—to check on the window peerer's condition, no doubt. Against my better judgment, I turned on the light over the back door and went out to check, too.

“You okay?” I asked from the back steps. Checking was one thing; going closer and getting involved was another.

“Her foot went through the bottom of the flowerpot. She'll need a bandage.”

I couldn't tell, from where I stood on the steps, which Spivey twin was sitting on the ground wearing a flowerpot on her foot and which stood over her with her hands on her hips. Both looked annoyed.

“Why'd you scream bloody murder?” the one on the ground asked.

A question I didn't want to answer. “Did you come in that?” I pointed to the car. It was a black two-door sedan, not their beige Buick.

“It's Angie's,” the standing twin said, referring to Mercy's daughter. “Ours is in the shop. Mind if we come in?”

“I was on my way out.”

“Mercy's ankle is bleeding pretty good.”

Mercy wasn't applying pressure and didn't seem overly concerned, but better safe than sued.

“Come on in.” I should have tried to sound less grudging and more gracious. It would have been wasted effort, though. Mercy swatted at Shirley when she helped take the flowerpot off her foot, and Shirley fussed at Mercy when she pulled herself to her feet by grabbing on to Shirley's arm, nearly toppling her as she did. Mercy didn't leave a trail of blood as she limped to the back steps.

“What's Angie driving while you have her car?” I asked as we trooped inside. “Aaron's pickup?”

“That old hunk of junk,” Mercy said, which didn't tell me yes or no, but told me Angie and Aaron were still together. Mercy sat down at the kitchen table with a credible wince, then looked at the tea I hadn't mopped up. “What kind of accident did
you
have?”

“Tea.” It was my turn to wince as Shirley walked through the puddle to sit opposite Mercy.

“Tea?” Shirley said. “Why, thank you. We'd be delighted.”

“Go ahead and pour it,” Mercy said, “and then you can bring that bandage. A dab of gauze should do it.”

“Then, after we're all settled, we'll tell you who we saw with Hugh McPhee yesterday afternoon.” Shirley's statement was followed by a yip and a glare for Mercy, who must have used her good foot to kick Shirley's shin.

“I'd like to hear about Hugh first,” I said. “Is that why you stopped by the shop today?”

They both glared at me.

Choose your battles,
Granny used to tell me,
and learn to know who's vexatious enough to turn around and bite you in the bottom if you win.

With a deliberately slow blink, I disengaged from the twins' stubborn challenge. Then I took a moment and looked around at Granny's kitchen cupboards, her worn countertops, the floor I'd tracked mud on. She and I had made innumerable batches of cookies at that table. She'd taught me how to wash dishes in her chipped porcelain sink. Shirley and Mercy were about as vexatious as they came, but if sweet tea and gauze were all it took to get information about Hugh McPhee's last afternoon in Blue Plum—and to keep their overly white teeth at bay—then I could play nice. The tea and gauze didn't come with a smile, though.

While I looked for gauze and adhesive tape in the bathroom, I called Joe and told him I'd probably be another half hour. “Sorry about the delay. I'll tell you about it when I get there.”

“I'm getting nowhere fast,” he said, sounding like a man who wanted to sigh but didn't believe in it. “I'll be here.”

I decided to get dessert from Mel's, too. We both deserved it.

“Good tea,” Shirley said when I returned. “And if
that's what's on the floor, you might want to wipe it up. Sweet as it is, it'll be a terrible, sticky mess if you don't.”

“It is good tea, though,” Mercy said. “And wouldn't it go just right with a cookie or slice of cake?”

“Wouldn't it? Sorry. I haven't got any.” I handed her the gauze and tape. “Too bad. But I was I was on my way out for something when you
dropped
in.”

“Pun intended,” Shirley chortled. And got another kick from Mercy.

I wet a paper towel and handed it to Mercy for her ankle, then wet a few more and wiped tea from the floor.

“Any antibacterial ointment?” Shirley asked.

“I thought I had some,” I said to the floor near her feet, “but I didn't find it.”

“You didn't get that spot over there.” Mercy pointed to the place. My trajectory had been far and wide. “Ointment is something you should always keep in your medicine cabinet,” she added.

“I'll put it on my list.” Instead I pictured getting a pair of socks and putting one in each vexatious mouth. That cheered me and I finished the floor with another wet towel, and then joined them at the table. “More tea?” I topped their glasses. “How's the ankle, Mercy?”

“Not as good as new, but it doesn't throb nearly so much. Thank you for asking.” She'd put the rest of the gauze and tape in her pocketbook.

“So, tell me about Hugh McPhee.” I didn't ask why they thought I'd be interested. I'd never told them about the posse and they'd never asked. It was one of those situations—they knew; I knew they knew; and they knew that no member was ever likely to ask them to be part of it. But in their own subtle and often irritating Spivey
way, they had contributed to our investigations. And whether it was a way of saving face or not, they made it look as though they preferred their outsider status.

“We'd have told you this afternoon,” Mercy said, “but you were conspicuous by your alleged absence.”

“You didn't leave a message.”

“Of course not,” Mercy said. “Too dangerous.”

“And you can't let anyone know we told you what we're about to tell you,” Shirley said.

“You'll be painting bull's-eyes on our backs if you do,” said Mercy. “That's why we parked so no one could see us.”

“And why you were sneaking around, looking in my kitchen window?”

“We had to make sure you were alone.”

Their hushed voices and uneasy glances over their shoulders were infectious. I found myself leaning toward them and looking left and right. “Who did you see with him?” I asked quietly.

“Al,” Shirley whispered.

“Who?”

“From Chicago.” Mercy stared at my face, then threw herself back in her chair. “I knew it. A waste of time and good skulking. I told you, Shirley. Didn't I tell you? She doesn't know Al from a fire hydrant.”

“And you should have listened,” Shirley said, “because it was
me
who told
you
.” She scooted her chair back, taking a layer of linoleum with her, but avoiding another kick.

I
avoided pinching the bridge of my nose. To me, that would have been a sign of holding it together—barely. To the twins it might have been a sign of weakness.
“Shirley, I'm at your mercy. Mercy, surely you can tell me what you're talking about.”

“Now you're making fun of us,” Shirley said.

“I wasn't—”

“A fine way to thank us,” said Mercy. “And after we came to warn you. Come on, Shirley.”

I held the door so they couldn't slam it. After they took off with a spatter of gravel against the garage, I dialed Mel's again.

*   *   *

Mel manned the café counter when I ran in to pick up the order, her apron crisp, her hair alert.

“Date night?” she asked, handing me a bag with two Reuben sandwiches, two of orders of sweet potato fries, and a box with two pieces of what she called Chocolate Cubed—a cube of two dense layers of chocolate cake filled and topped with dark chocolate ganache studded with dark chocolate chips. After the day and evening Joe was having, and after my unexpected Spivey Time, I'd changed my mind about lentil salad. We both deserved calories and comfort. “Don't go passing this off as your own cooking, though, Red. Joe might be moonstruck by your charms, but he won't fall for that baloney.”

“You know what you need, Mel? Music for people to listen to when they're on hold instead of silence that lets their own thoughts run away with them. Merely a suggestion.” I plunked two bottles of root beer from her cooler on the counter. The plunk might have sounded more aggressive than it needed to. I probably needed those calories and comfort more than I'd realized. “No offense meant, though, Mel.”

“None taken, Red, though I do wonder why you bring
that up this evening. Apart from your obvious case of nerves. But do you know what we really need? Caller ID. It'd be helpful for business purposes, and it might also cut down on prank calls. We had a screamer tonight. Scared the new guy out of his wits. He might never be the same.” She looked at me with assessing eyes. “You know anything about that, Red?”

“Your guy's voice came out of dead silence and Mercy Spivey was looking in my kitchen window.”

Mel flinched. “Say no more. Your reaction is totally understandable. You aren't the first one to suggest hold music, either. I've toyed with the idea of reading the menu into a tape recorder, you know, describing each item in sultry, salivating detail and using that instead of music.”

“I think it's all digital now, Mel.”

“Whatever.”

“So, why don't you do it? It'd be great.”

“Because I don't do sultry, Red. But if I did, it
would
be great and then we'd have people calling from who knows where just to be put on hold and I don't have time for that kind of nonsense.”

“Can I ask you a quick question?”

But she didn't have time for any more chitchat, either. She flapped me away with her apron and turned to help the next person in line. I'd wanted to ask her who Al from Chicago was. I saved the question for Joe.

*   *   *

Joe was capable of many things and good at what he enjoyed doing. Herding rabid craftspeople—even if only over the phone—wasn't one of those things. I drove over to the school and called him from the parking lot. He
told me the door at the far end of the building, under the security light, was unlocked. I found him inside, sitting on the stage, knitting. A long snake of garter stitch spilled from the stage to the floor below. It was striped in an amazing range of colors. He must have put every odd inch from his stash in it.

“Is that helping?” I asked.

“Fishing would be better. Not an option right now. Just taking a short break. Steadies the nerves. Never knew my nerves could be so easily shot.”

“Is it really that bad?” I shouldn't have asked. It was like hitting a man when he was feeling down because the big one had slipped the hook. I put the bags and box from Mel's on the stage and boosted myself up next to them. “Put your needles down and scoot over here.” He did and I gave him a kiss. “Now we eat. And then, if things aren't looking better after Reubens, fries, and Mel's Chocolate Cubed, we'll call the whiners and the bullies and tell them we're refunding their money and they should take their crappy crafts and go away. Do you have the authority to do that?”

“I have authority over many rolls of painter's tape for marking booth spaces on the floor and numbering them consecutively. I ran out of the allotted number of rolls this afternoon and had to buy more. Now I have an extra roll. I could use it to bind and gag the most obnoxious of the crap people, but I don't have authority to do that.”

I shushed him with a finger over his lips. “If you don't have the authority to dump those losers, then we'll call whoever's in charge of the whole caboodle and toss the problems in his or her lap. Who
is
in charge?”

“Olive.”

One of the charms of small-town life—that everyone knew everyone else—could also be one of the problems. People often assumed I was on a first-name basis with everyone, too. “I don't think I know an Olive.”

“Pokey's wife.”

That name I did know. There was only one Pokey that anyone talked about—Mayor Pokey Weems, son of Gladys the Blue Prune who'd kicked Clod's shin and been as pleased as Ardis to hear that Hugh McPhee was back in town. I wondered how Gladys was taking the news of Hugh's death. “Did you know that she and Hugh were cousins? Ardis mentioned that at the meeting.”

“I should cut her some slack.”

“Probably, but Ardis said they weren't close. And anyway, being the mayor's wife, Olive should be used to dealing with all kinds of situations. Doesn't she have a committee and know how to delegate?”

“She does.” Joe nodded. “And when she called last week and asked me to do this favor for her, because the person who
was
in charge of logistics suddenly backed out, that's what she was doing—demonstrating how she deals and delegates by rolling the two up into one f—one freaking mess and slam-dunking the whole thing into my lap.” He stopped and held up a hand. “Not that I'm bitter. I'm not. Want me to show you how much I'm not bitter?” He pulled me to him and he was right. Aggravated he might be, but his kiss was gentle and sweet and not bitter at all. “It's my fault,” he said, letting me go. “I should've asked more questions before I said yes.”

“You think she knew these people were going to cause a fuss?”

“At this point, whether she did or not doesn't matter. Besides, what happened to ‘Now we eat'?”

I opened the bag and handed him his sandwich, fries, and bottle of root beer, and we sat with our legs dangling from the edge of the stage. Joe and I had eaten supper in the gym once before, when we both went to the Historical Trust Annual Meeting and Potluck in the spring. We hadn't been a couple then, but we'd ended up going through the supper line together. Joe, noted local potluck connoisseur, had been the perfect tour guide through the various pots, bowls, casseroles, and cake and pie plates. The gym looked bigger without the ranks of folding tables that had crowded it for the potluck. The blue rectangles Joe had spent the afternoon taping and numbering on the floor looked like a quilt, or an odd game of hopscotch.